A nexus of middlemen is working at its best on the premises of SSKM hospital, targeting the poor people the most who are not aware of the functioning of the medical system while the hospital authorities continue to remain oblivious of the matter.

To dig deep into the racket of middleman making a business out of the patients in government run hospitals, a reporter of The Statesman on Monday posed as a relative of a cardiac patient in the SSKM hospital and witnessed the operations carried out by the racket in the hospital premises.

A sum of Rs 5000 is all that is needed to be paid to a middleman to arrange a bed of your relative in SSKM. Mohammed Sheikh, one such middleman who hails from Barasat and works in alliance with other such touts was engaged in negotiation with a patient’s family on the hospital premises.

On Monday, the concerned middleman, Sheikh, engaged in dealings with a patient from Barasat who suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday night. “All the hospitals in Barasat refused to take him under them, so early morning we got him admitted here”, said a kin of the patient.

When the hospitals allegedly refused to treat the cardiac patient, Sheikh contacted another middleman in SSKM who happens to be a woman, working in the hospital.

The ‘Group D staff’ allegedly works as a link between the hospital and patient family, Sheikh told this Statesman reporter. According to him, there have been many instances when Sheikh had admitted patients in SSKM with the help of that woman whose phone number he had saved as “PG Muskura”.

Sheikh is of the opinion that in today’s time, everything works on referral basis and without reference, a person cannot get any kind of benefit- be it treatment in government-run hospital or just getting a bed for admission.

Therefore, he gets people from suburbs admitted in SSKM with the help of touts. On another occasion, while talking to The Statesman, the director of SSKM, Dr Ajoy Kumar Ray said, “Patients need not pay a single penny to any middleman in a government-run hospital to avail any facilities. Treatment here is free .”

The statement, however, is contrary to the prevailing conditions. But, Dr Ray refused to say comment on the matter on Monday saying that he is “busy”. “The nexus is generally carried out by the’ Group D staff of the hospitals”, said the senior doctor of a reputed government-run hospital.

“This happens when the demand and supply gap for the hospital beds increases”, he added. The senior doctor further pointed out “To curb the nexus, the hospital authorities of Nil Ratan Sirkar hospital have decided to rotate duty shifts of junior staff so that they do not get chance to engage in any kind of illegal business or extract money out of the patients unnecessarily.”

The matter of these touts came to light after the death of a 23-year-old Amit Mondal, who allegedly died as his father was unable to pay the bribe for a brain stent to Palash Dutta, the storekeeper of Bangur Neurological institute which is a part of SSKM hospital.